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For you, perhaps, but the point of my questions was to highlight that you need a justification for why this should be the basic view from which you start.

But this fact actually suggests that pain is valuable. Without pain one would be unaware that one was sawing off one's finger. If one did a lot of sawing of wood, one could, in the absence of the sensation of pain, potentially lose a lot of fingers! Pain, then, is a good thing since it tells us that something injurious is happening to us and we ought to act to prevent the injury from continuing.

In any case, you haven't yet established why pain in the application of the technique is bad. All you've done so far is explain the obvious: pain indicates that something injurious is occurring. I still don't see that when applying nikyo painfully to someone I do the lock badly. I want uke to understand as the lock is applied that "something ain't good" and that if he does not yield to the lock what "ain't good" is only going to get worse.

So, you're saying here that the pain of intense physical exercise is not a bad thing because it yields increases in muscle mass and strength? But this implies that not all pain is bad, that pain actually may signal something ultimately positive is occurring. This doesn't seem to me to help establish your view that pain in nikyo is always a bad thing...

This is rather confusing. Are you saying "Pain is resistance" is a spiritual truth? If so, how, exactly?

And why should Aikido be a spiritual endeavour? Why is this the view of those who are "taking it seriously"? My late shihan took his Aikido very seriously but I never once in the twenty-some years I knew him ever heard him speak of the spirituality of Aikido. I don't, then, see that serious Aikido must be spiritual.

But this is precisely why pain in nikyo is useful: it encourages non-resistance on the part of uke.

I'm afraid you aren't making much sense here. You say that pain is important in discovering how not to resist but this means one must receive pain in order to make such a discovery. But in the context of Aikido training this suggests that Aikido technique ought to be painful so that uke might learn non-resistance. You've said, though, that painful technique is not good technique. Why then should nage perform painful technique on uke? Doing so, in your view, is to practice bad technique. Do you see the glaring problem in this? I do.

You haven't offered any explanation for how discovering non-resistance through pain leads to the understanding that non-resistance should be practiced by both uke and nage. If non-resistance is related to experiencing pain, are you saying nage should be in pain while practicing technique? Surely not. But this is the impression your words are giving.

Your rationale above seems to be:

1. Experiencing pain leads to an understanding of non-resistance.
2. Understanding non-resistance leads to understanding that both uke and nage should practice non-resistance.
3. Therefore, nikyo should not be applied painfully.

This is a glaring non-sequitur. Your conclusion does not clearly issue from your premises.

But you haven't yet given a reasonable justification for making it a given that "non-resistance is fundamental to Aikido." All you've said is that experiencing pain leads to understanding non-resistance, not why this understanding is "fundamental to Aikido."

I would be very interested in applying my nikyo to you and seeing just how well your non-resistance voids it.

I agree. But I don't get the sense that you've thought very carefully through your views, which makes me very skeptical about your understanding of non-resistance.

Regards,

Jon.

Oh well, I think I have explained quite well. Contrary to the so called rules of 'argument' and 'having to' justify I prefer explanation as best I can and leave it to others to understand what I am saying the best they can for my 'justification' is what I know.

I also prefer to follow what O'Sensei said rather than lots of others views and what they said. I tend to have a good affinity for such and practice in order to make those things he said, 90% of which are spiritual by the way, more real. Therefor I am not one of the many who say they didn't or don't have a clue what he was talking about and thus remove what he said from Aikido and put it down to 'other' spiritual practice. None, or very very little of what he said was other than Aikido as far as I am concerned and non resistance being a major factor.

Shin no budo is what he practiced as do I. To bring 'kon' into prominence, thus spiritual. So through non resistance experience the oneness and flow of the universe and thus Ki. Even before he called his art Aikido, which he did in his own words as far as I know, he called his aikibudo the art of oneness.

I hope all who do Aikido will experience oneness, will experience absolute non resistance, will experience the reality of budo is love, will experience and then be able to see what he said was Aikido rather than spiritual something else.

So I have no quarrel with your views for you are on the path but will always say that even if someone is on the path there are times they are and times they are not doing shin no budo.

In any case, you haven't yet established why pain in the application of the technique is bad.

If the point of nikajo/nikyo is to control uke's knee through the arm, and if this can be done without pain, then a pain stimulus may disguise poor technique. If all you're interested in doing is making uke drop to the floor then pain may be adequate (although see above comments about performing nikyo on the unsuspecting and seeing pain without the desired compliance). I tend to think there is more to aikido then that.

Pain can also be caused by uke himself trying to block or resist, it does not neccessarily have to be caused by a poor technique.

To reach the state of "non resistance", uke has to take a lot of nikkyo to make his body "permeable" for nages force.
Nage in turn has to learn to deal with ukes resistance, otherwise a strong uke might push him through the dojo, or if nage is stronger he will break the resistance with his own power, but this often leads to injury.
In a real fight there will be no time to struggle around, but it might be uesful to try something out in a practice-surrounding.

Concerning O Senseis techniques, my teacher said when he was young and he took ukemi for him, no matter where O Sensei grabbed, nikkyo or yonkyo, he felt terrible pain.
Somewhere I read that O Senseis ukes always tried to avoid being grabbed, because when it happened, it was painful.

If the point of nikajo/nikyo is to control uke's knee through the arm, and if this can be done without pain, then a pain stimulus may disguise poor technique. If all you're interested in doing is making uke drop to the floor then pain may be adequate (although see above comments about performing nikyo on the unsuspecting and seeing pain without the desired compliance). I tend to think there is more to aikido then that.

Jon can speak for himself. However - I've had people who have trained at Aikikai Hombu in Tokyo tell me that you shouldn't RELY on the pain to do the technique - the movement should do it - but - the you have to be able to create the pain because not everyone is going to move the way an aikido person will move - unless we're able to cause the pain (creating the compliance) joe bloggs might not realize that if he was in a dojo he'd have to go on one knee and "tap" to signify it's time to move on - he might need to get a bit of crunchy time on the forearm...

Not sure I get "controlling the knee through the arm" but yes, a well applied nikyo controls me and can provide significant ouch moments. Someone who doesn't quite get it might try to force the issue in the wrong alignment by applying more force, but that's not good nikyo - a good nikyo controls and can hurt.

there's dojo time and there's "just in case" time - and if you can't do the just in case stuff, the dojo time might be a waste of time.... Unless of course you're doing aikido for exercise and fitness.

... not everyone is going to move the way an aikido person will move ...

It's the purpose of my practice to make people move the way I want them to move. Whether they practice aikidō and know nikyo (or any other technique) or not.

I experience this to be possible when applying nikyo as a way of connection to uke which gives me control over his structure to a certain degree. Inflicting pain just locks up ukes structure and if he does not know how or where to move, he will just get stuck and "break up" if tori does not halt his technique.

----

I don't understand why it would be "more martial" to inflict pain? To me the criteria of martial effectivness is whether I can handle an aggressor or not. I think aikidō to be "designed" in a way that it works by using things like body structure (tori's structurer affects uke's structure), contact, inner movement, ... . To my experience pain is not (never) what makes aikidō waza work. It can be added if one want's to. But pain is not the vehicel of (technicly understood) aiki, I think.

I don't think nikyo must rely solely on pain for its effectiveness but saying it should not be at all painful seems to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I have never encountered a nikyo that wasn't at least uncomfortable in order to be effective. Certainly, I have never felt a nikyo that was totally pain-free that was also able to control me. Maybe I need a broader experience with other aikidoka.

I am not convinced that a pain-free form of nikyo would actually be effective against someone who was really trying to beat the crap out of you. A pain-free nikyo may appear to work in the dojo where uke has been carefully trained to respond in just the right way, but my experience suggests that such a response to a painless nikyo outside of the dojo by a very aggressive attacker is virtually nil.

My main purpose in commenting in this thread was to object to the idea that a painful nikyo must also necessarily be a poorly executed one. I don't believe this for a moment. The most effective nikyo I have ever felt was also very painful. If some wish to work toward an effective but pain-free nikyo, more power to them. They just shouldn't get on a high horse and proclaim to the rest of us that the proper and best nikyo must always be pain-free.

Regards,

Jon.

"Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend."

I think we are talking about very different things. No, I wouldn't trust my life to a non-painful nikajo the way we perform it in the dojo. However, I wouldn't trust my life to nikajo under any circumstances.

"Controlling" uke has different meanings. In the kenshusei program in Kyoto, everything we are doing is about learning how to use our own center and get control of uke's center. In that training context, nikajo/nikyo can definitely be done to control uke without pain. I have had it done to me. I couldn't really resist--I just crumpled onto the ground. Would it have worked if I had been full of adrenaline and trying to punch and kick and shite and my bodies weren't aligned properly? Probably not. That is not the point of aikido, though, in my opinion.

Eventually, at a higher level of performance, I think the lessons learned in aikido should translate into improved fighting. However, if all you want to do is learn self-defense techniques, then you are wasting a lot of time in an aikido dojo, when you could be just learning only the most effective take-downs and locks with the most "wiggle room" for street-brawl-conditions-error.

I'd like to offer our local notion on jointlocks and their resulting throws:

Whichever of the controls you employ, the goal is to immobilize the movement of the arm and shoulder. When you have appropriately twisted the arm so that no slack for movement remains, the body is forced to follow the arm, when you drive it toward the ground.

This is how an effective nikka jo can be painless. You can push a rope or a chain, the saying goes- if you twist it just right, it locks up. Sanka jo is more ropey; nikka jo is the chain, in this example.

BTW, the street-bar room brawl version of nikka jo is the same as kihon, except instead of grasping his wrist with the off hand, you throw your arm over and use your elbow to lever him down, while your hand protects your face. You can turn away slightly, so he falls toward his free hand, and anything it might be holding. It's pretty reliable.

I mentioned before that if you are in guard, you can roll for Kimura and come up with nikka jo pretty often, if you are in a gym that allows it. You have to be careful, though- I did that to a BJJ guy and it really pi$$ed him off (but it was at the Bullshido Throwdown in Skokie so it was allowable).

A query some of the learned folk of this forum may be able to answer. I recently had a discussion with a friend who studies Yoseikan Aikido and the differences between waza names e.g. Ikkyo, Ikkajo, Robuse. On my Yoshinkan side of the house, we are often told that the waza names come from the pre-War naming. My Yoseikan friend mentioned that the naming of Aikido waza in the modern Ikkyo, Nikkyo etc forms took place during a conference in the 60's era.

Is this rumour or can anyone confirm/deny? When in the development of Aikido did they stop using the Daito ryu waza names and start using the modern names?

Regards,

Stu

Many of our Yoseikan names come from Judo and the original names that O Sensei (Pre-War) called his techniques. Nikyu is called kote kudaki in Yoseikan Budo. That being said - while pain may not the "goal" I was always taught that it was an added benefit to the technique being done correctly. Let's not kid ourselves - this is a joint locking technique. Not to mention that the literal translation of kote kudaki is "wrist crushing." I think with a literal name like that one could expect there to be some amount of pain involved. I think it really boils down to the style and what nage/tori wants to do in their relationship of working with uke.

At Ikashi Dojo, our nikyo hurts like hell, and that's the way we want it.

In a country when police force is insufficient and ill equipped, just forcing an aggressor down will not do it. We need something that will leave him - or her - writhing in pain, or, even better, passed out so we can run for our life.

This is the reality that those who dwell in the high spheres of philosophy do not know.

A foreign student once told me that our Aikido is street oriented, and that in some dojos elsewhere, partners do not even touch each other. This is cute, but it does not work for us.

A few days ago, my sister was dragged on the street by two men on a motorcycle who were trying to snatch her purse. The attack was too sudden and violent for her to even try to resist, and still, the purse did not come off her arm, and she was dragged into the traffic. She was lucky not to be run over, but her arm broke and had to be surgically repaired.

Try to live in a place like that, and you will want your nikyo to hurt.

Of course, in the dojo, we take care to apply any technique carefully, and to let go as soon as nage taps.

I don't have any objection to it hurting, and it often does, sometimes a lot. But I don't think I'd ever feel safe if I was actually relying on pain to bring someone down. That just seems way too dangerous.

It's such a common experience to have people react to pain by fighting harder against it (especially if they don't know what will stop the pain). In fact fighting harder against anything painful seems to be the most instinctive reaction of untrained beginners - they have to actually be taught that it will hurt less if they go with it. If you surprise or overwhelm them with something painful they'll usually fight it with all their strength and risk injury. But if you lock their joints and use leverage and collapse their body and stuff like that it can work even on an uke who's on their first day, since they don't really need to know what you're trying to make them do.

It's also so so common to ignore pain in the heat of the moment or not really feel it even when you later turn out to be seriously injured. When I think of painful injuries I've had - a broken wrist as a teenager, a toenail torn off in aikido, partially torn tendons - at least 50% of the time I kept going and only noticed I was injured after the adrenaline wore off.

So for me I think it seems quite useful to try to make things less painful and get them working well that way. You can always add the pain later on top if you want... But I don't feel that safe actually relying on pain.

1. It doesn't always work, and just pisses most people off.
2. It gives uke too much information about what I'm doing.
3. If I can get uke to lock himself up, why would I need/want to hurt him?

You "don't cause pain in any technique"? Really? I find that very hard to believe. Being immobilized against your will sometimes hurts. What you've listed are good reasons not to make pain the goal of technique and not to trust pain to make technique work, but good technique still hurts sometimes.

Any technique can theoretically be applied without pain, but no one is so good that he makes his techniques work 100% of the time against every uke without causing any pain. I can say from personal experience that even Ikeda, Tasaka, and Moriyama aren't that good, and in light of that, I feel pretty confident saying that no one is.

You "don't cause pain in any technique"? Really? I find that very hard to believe.

Fortunately for me, my experience is not predicated on your belief. There are more things in heaven and earth, Mr. Story, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. There may be a few people here who have trained with our folks recently enough who might be inclined comment on what I said. Tarik? Jun?

I know more than a few people who can lock me up from scalp to tooties without causing me pain. In fact, my teacher can throw me around without me being able to viscerally compute how it's even happening, despite my understanding of how it's happening. (Sometimes. I'm getting more skillful at figuring it out, but he, annoyingly, keeps getting more skillful, too. So there's that.) I, myself, didn't believe it until I first got my hands on my teacher. After that, there was no option for me but to leave Japan for Arizona to figure out how he did it. That was almost 16 years ago.

Did I say "pain doesn't happen?" Or did I say "I don't cause pain?" Very different. Perhaps we define "pain" differently or are parsing what I said in dissimilar ways.

Let's break this down to the minute particulars: Deliberately causing pain as a means to an end is very different from incidental ouchies that might occur as a result of uke struggling, Mr. Murphy stopping by for a visit, etc. Very different. I find this to be a useful question: Am I DOING the technique, or is the technique HAPPENING? If I have to rely on causing pain, I'm doing it wrong. I never want you to say "ouch." I want you to say "WTF???"

It's also so so common to ignore pain in the heat of the moment or not really feel it even when you later turn out to be seriously injured. When I think of painful injuries I've had - a broken wrist as a teenager, a toenail torn off in aikido, partially torn tendons - at least 50% of the time I kept going and only noticed I was injured after the adrenaline wore off.

Same here. When I've been running whitewater in a situation where an interruption could be fatal, I've taken some shots where I knew I'd been hit, but it was almost like reading the word "PAIN" on a piece of paper rather than experiencing it: a "PAIN" signal that didn't involve any feeling of pain. The only time I've ever felt pain in such a situation was when it was a pretty serious injury, and even then it was muffled.

Fortunately for me, my experience is not predicated on your belief. There are more things in heaven and earth, Mr. Story, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. There may be a few people here who have trained with our folks recently enough who might be inclined comment on what I said. Tarik? Jun?

I know more than a few people who can lock me up from scalp to tooties without causing me pain. In fact, my teacher can throw me around without me being able to viscerally compute how it's even happening, despite my understanding of how it's happening. (Sometimes. I'm getting more skillful at figuring it out, but he, annoyingly, keeps getting more skillful, too. So there's that.) I, myself, didn't believe it until I first got my hands on my teacher. After that, there was no option for me but to leave Japan for Arizona to figure out how he did it. That was almost 16 years ago.

Did I say "pain doesn't happen?" Or did I say "I don't cause pain?" Very different. Perhaps we define "pain" differently or are parsing what I said in dissimilar ways.

Let's break this down to the minute particulars: Deliberately causing pain as a means to an end is very different from incidental ouchies that might occur as a result of uke struggling, Mr. Murphy stopping by for a visit, etc. Very different. I find this to be a useful question: Am I DOING the technique, or is the technique HAPPENING? If I have to rely on causing pain, I'm doing it wrong. I never want you to say "ouch." I want you to say "WTF???"

It seems that the root of our disagreement is not so much different ideas about aikido as different understandings of what it means to cause pain, because I agree with most of this.

It seems that the root of our disagreement is not so much different ideas about aikido as different understandings of what it means to cause pain, because I agree with most of this.

Actually, our approach to Aiki is probably different as well. What we do is rather unlike anything I've seen in Japan or the U.S. This is one reason I don't call what we do "Aikido," but rather Aikibudo. This is reflected by my teacher as well.

Not only should technique not hurt, ideally, uke shouldn't be able to feel what is happening at all.

Actually, our approach to Aiki is probably different as well. What we do is rather unlike anything I've seen in Japan or the U.S. This is one reason I don't call what we do "Aikido," but rather Aikibudo. This is reflected by my teacher as well.

That's interesting. I'm going to have to look this up.

Quote:

Not only should technique not hurt, ideally, uke shouldn't be able to feel what is happening at all.

I don't necessarily disagree. I just misunderstood what you meant when you said you "don't cause pain in any technique".

1. It doesn't always work, and just pisses most people off.
2. It gives uke too much information about what I'm doing.
3. If I can get uke to lock himself up, why would I need/want to hurt him?

Dear Michael,
If you do not cause pain to anyone in your dojo how do you teach your students to respond to a powerful waza which pounds them through the floor?How do you prepare them for a powerful nikkyo which cranks the wrist? For myself I can testify that Nikkyo hurts like hell at least for me.Joe.

If you do not cause pain to anyone in your dojo how do you teach your students to respond to a powerful waza which pounds them through the floor?How do you prepare them for a powerful nikkyo which cranks the wrist? For myself I can testify that Nikkyo hurts like hell at least for me.Joe.